The Licorice Stick
by SocialMoth
Summary: John buys a clarinet from a garage sale on a lark. 'Hilarity ensues.' COMPLETE.


**June 2011**

**My first legit "Sherlock" fanfic! Huzzah and a day! :D**

**It's interesting what bunnies will hop up when you're trying to remember how to play something on an instrument you haven't practiced in five years. |D**

**I don't know what I thought I was doing, writing about playing music when I barely remember anything about it anymore, but the idea wouldn't leave me alone. Ehm... bear with me?**

**"Sherlock." Don't own it. Would love to have a cuppa with the brains and faces, though...**

* * *

><p>"John."<p>

He suppressed a sigh. "Yes, Sherlock."

"What is that?"

John knew that Sherlock knew perfectly well what that was. He looked at the rough, black, plastic case sitting open on the coffee table, himself perched on the couch, leaning forward with his hands clasped between his open knees as he inspected his newest (to him) possession. Even though it was in pieces – five pieces, to be exact; settled safely into worn black foam – anyone who had even a rudimentary knowledge of instruments would know what those pieces composed.

When Sherlock had said "What is that?" he had meant, "Why the hell is there a clarinet in our flat?"

"It was cheap," John explained, not even looking at his flatmate still standing in the doorway. He felt he knew Sherlock well enough that he could guess the other man's reactions without needing to see them. "Only about thirty quid." John wondered again why the bloke was selling it for such a low price, even for a garage sale offering. A sigh from the doorway, but Sherlock said nothing more as he walked through the living area into the kitchen. Out of the corner of his eye, John watched him mill about the table, looking casually between the cabinets and the refrigerator. "Not much in," John admitted, "I'll remember to go shopping tomorrow."

"Of course; you wasted the money for it _today_ on that clarinet," Sherlock remarked dryly from the kitchen. John tried not to wince – he failed. Some sounds of rummaging in the cupboards, and then Sherlock came back into the living area empty-handed. "Takeaway?" he suggested, switching mood so effortlessly John blinked a few times before remembering to respond.

"Sure."_ Waste_ even more money on overpriced Chinese? Why not.

Sherlock picked lightly at the orange chicken, maybe taking one bite every three minutes. No cases right now, but he anticipated the call. John followed his lead and though he ate quickly, he made sure he did not eat too much. Even if the call never came, well, there'd be something to take into work for lunch tomorrow.

"Not another dull evening," Sherlock moaned forlornly after the nine o'clock hour passed them by without a peep from his cell phone. John let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding for this declaration. The television clicked on a moment later, channels flickering by in bursts of color and sound. Sherlock cycled through them all a couple of times, finally deciding to let it linger on the science fiction channel. He had no use for anything science fiction-related, Sherlock had said, but it was more consistently intriguing than anything else. John glanced at the coffee table from his favored armchair; the clarinet case remained open, light from the telly reflecting off the instrument's silver trimmings.

He flipped the lid over the hinges when he passed by on his way up to bed with a loud snap.

–

The case sat on the coffee table for two days. On the third day, Sherlock huffed irritably that he couldn't step over the coffee table from the couch with it in his way. So John moved it up to his room, where he should have taken it in the first place. Then maybe he could have avoided the criticism from his unimpressed flatmate.

Boredom, mostly. That was the real reason that he had bought the clarinet. Living the life he had with Sherlock Holmes in 221B Baker Street, "boredom" was not a word that fit. Not even for the sake of alliteration.

Bored at 221B Baker Street. Nope.

But despite his welcoming embrace of the "mundane" work Sarah had warned him about at the surgery, despite what he objectively told Mycroft about never being bored with the younger Holmes brother, John did indeed, on occasion, find himself _bored_.

He had mentioned it in passing to Sarah during a coffee break at work. John liked being a doctor again for the patients. He liked being a soldier again in the "battlefield" of London's criminal underbelly. But on some level it still bothered him that this was all he could think to do. And Sherlock had rubbed off on him in many ways, but he did not want to take up his flatmate's habit of shooting novelty images into Mrs. Hudson's walls for entertainment.

"Well, what about that clarinet you told me about?" Sarah had quipped, a mischievous light twinkling in her eyes, and they'd both shared a laugh. But then John had got to thinking about it, and then to _really_ thinking about it, and then thinking maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to revisit an old interest and see where it took him.

It had never been John's intention to actually _acquire_ a clarinet – not so fast, at least. But the deal was good, and the guy needed money to continue going to university to become a doctor himself. A tugged heartstring and some helpful advice later, John walked home with a new used clarinet.

And now he wasn't sure what he was going to do with it.

Although John tried to convince himself that Sherlock's opinion didn't matter concerning what _he_ wanted to do, he had a feeling the other man would find no shortage of entertainment in overtly mocking it.

He pushed the case under his bed.

–

Sherlock was out. God only knew where, but he'd cleared off while John was still at work. John had only a text ("_Maybe not worth my time. Don't wait up. SH_") as assurance the man hadn't vanished off the earth entirely. No sign of Mrs. Hudson; she had mentioned something about catching up with an old friend who was staying in town for the weekend, that morning.

Alone in the flat.

That did not happen very often.

Hands on his hips, John surveyed the floor of the living area. Sherlock picked everything up after a case according to his personal protocol; if there was a chance of him delving into a new one tonight, then there was no point in gathering the papers scattered on the carpet into a neat stack for the man to sort through himself.

John made himself a cup of tea and sat in his armchair across from the telly, but he didn't turn it on. Just gazed at the blank screen and sipped from the steaming cup. There was a lot he could do, with the run of the flat. No flatmate to take care not to bother. He smiled to himself. John wondered why he took pains not to irritate Sherlock when Sherlock apparently gave little thought to how his activities (read: experiments) might infuriate others.

Courtesy. He carried a tiny hope that his manners might somehow rub off onto Sherlock, if they lived together long enough.

So far, John still stood a very good chance of being woken up at three in the morning by his flatmate's violin.

His thoughts drifted to the clarinet, in its case, still under his bed. He hadn't taken it out for the sake of avoiding Sherlock's _anything_. No one here.

John shrugged to himself at the thought. Then he grinned and practically jumped up from his chair.

A few minutes later, he sat down on the couch, as he had the first hour he possessed the instrument, and he popped the case open. Just like when he first saw it. Now, if he remembered correctly (school seemed like _such_ a long time ago)...

Second joint attaches to the bell; the first joint to the second; the barrel to the first. He remembered and walked briskly into the kitchen to fill a cup with water – did it matter if it was warm or cool? Returning, he set the cup down on the coffee table and dropped a new reed (the previous owner had generously provided his stash of unused replacement reeds in the sale) into the cup for a moment. Into the ligature it went, and then the mouthpiece finally joined the barrel.

John adjusted his posture, and the clarinet in his hands, and closed his lips around the mouthpiece. Just like riding a bike...

Nothing came out of the instrument at first. And then low whining sound. And then a sharp squeak that stabbed his eardrums. Perhaps he'd used too much air? Bemused, John tried again. The squeak built up gradually for a few seconds, then swung into a sky-high pitch that nearly made him drop the clarinet. He removed the mouthpiece and looked down through to the open end of the bell; nothing blocking it that way. It was hard to say if there was anything in the mouthpiece causing the problem.

Hmm.

So that was why it was so cheap...

John's phone chirped from his pocket, and he pulled it out.

_Four suicides and a Yorkshire terrier. Powell Estate. Come now. SH_

John looked between his phone and the clarinet. He quickly dismantled the instrument and put the pieces back into their foam nests, closing the case over them and leaving it toward the side of the coffee table. He could remember to take it back up to his room later.

Then he grabbed his coat and began hailing a cab the instant he stepped out the door.

–

Sleep tugged at John's eyelids the moment he made it up the first flight of stairs into the main area of their flat. The LCD display on his phone gave the time as a quarter after midnight. Somehow a quadruple suicide (and a dead Yorkie that Sherlock decided just happened to have been dumped nearby) had turned out to indeed be a quadruple murder, in the name of a fledgling amateur cult in the area. It had taken a couple hours of legwork – metaphorically and literally – to figure all of that out and subsequently identify the exact group responsible, after which the verdict passed that this was a case not worth Sherlock Holmes' time ("Murders in the name of 'religion' are all the same: Dull"). Irritating to have been called to the other side of London for "nothing" (entirely the wrong word to use, though Sherlock had had no problem with it in the taxi ride back), but John had to admit it was still more interesting than popping down to the local music shop to find out how he might fix that clarinet. Although the latter definitely felt like it would have been a little more productive.

Well. He could take care of that tomorrow.

"I'm all in," he murmured to Sherlock, having the distinct feeling of being watched – _closely observed_ – by said flatmate as he traipsed up the stairs. He ignored it; that was simply what Sherlock _did_, after all. "See you after I get off work tomorrow." He bade his flatmate goodnight, knowing by now that despite the lack of active work his flatmate still might not go to sleep, at least not for a while. Usually the man would give up on receiving a call around three-thirty or so, slap a couple nicotine patches on his arm, and then fitfully drift off in his shirt and trousers on the couch, suit jacket hanging neatly off the couch back or sometimes carefully draped over his torso on colder nights. John knew all of this because he had come down to fix his breakfast on several occasions to see the man dozing in rumpled clothes, all limbs sprawled half-on, half-off the comparatively little couch and hair sticking up at odd angles.

Why three-thirty? Merely a guess. John had yet to be woken up by Sherlock's violin at four or five in the morning on a non-case night.

Why not earlier? Sherlock's sleeping habits were remotely comparable only to a partying college student.

He didn't realize until right before he fell asleep, though only in a half-awake note-to-self, that he'd forgotten to take the clarinet back up with him.

–

The case is beaten up, dirt caked within the cracks of the rough plastic. It's at least ten years old, been left for extended periods on various surfaces – carpet, concrete, dirt, linoleum – and rarely cleaned. Some grime in the crevices of the aluminum piping and buckles. Sherlock narrows his eyes, noting with distaste that the clarinet case (and presumably the clarinet _in_ it) is down here on his coffee table again, after he explicitly told John precisely why it _can't_ be there.

Well, he grants, at least it's sitting on the edge this time. Sherlock rarely steps on the _edge_ of the table – doing so would cause it to flip up like a garden rake in cartoons; at best he'd tumble off in a most undignified manner, and at worst he would also need a new coffee table. Sherlock steeples his fingers, peering over them at the case from his chair. His gaze flickers over to the stairwell leading to John's room again, just for a second, before returning to the case. Rounded, scuffed corners. Chipped edges. Multiple times the case has been dragged over concrete and against brick walls. Rust in the buckles and hinges now that he looks again. It's been carried in the rain and not dried off, many times. He had heard the sounds of John brushing his teeth and the slight creak of the mattress as he settled under the covers. After a further ten minutes of tossing his gaze between the case, the stairwell, and anything else on that general side of the flat, Sherlock decides that if John has realized his mistake, he isn't going to do anything about it tonight. So he settles a little more into his chair, regarding the case more languidly over his fingers. He'd made his disdain clear the first night it was in the house. It seems flippant of John to suddenly buy a clarinet when he has made no mention (and Sherlock has made no deduction) of ever playing the instrument. Especially when John is always making remarks about budgeting and the cost of eggs nowadays.

But it is still here. Specifically, it is _down here_. It had certainly not been there when Sherlock left the flat this afternoon, which means that John must have brought it down after he came home from work and left it there when Sherlock summoned him. The corners of his lips twitch. _He_ would not have forgotten to put it back where it belonged.

But John hates it when Sherlock goes into his room without permission. Especially when he is asleep.

So: John had obviously messed around with it for a little while earlier. So he does intend to make an effort with it, after all.

After another glance to the stairwell, Sherlock rises from his chair, bounds onto and over the coffee table, and sits down near the case, pulling it over the table closer to him. In seconds he assembles the pieces. He has a vague recollection of the basics for playing the clarinet. With nothing better available to muffle the sound, he buries the bell into the nearest throw pillow, then gives an experimental blow.

It squeaks _horribly_ and he immediately takes his lips off the mouthpiece, bewildered. Perhaps he... Oh – the reed. He dampens it in the cup of water near the case (also left by John, he has deduced) and after flicking off the excess, sticks it back in place. The tone is _a little_ better, but still sounds worse than anything he can make with his violin when annoyed at Mycroft.

Unaware that John did much the same, Sherlock disassembles the clarinet piece by piece, inspecting for blockages or anything else that might be affecting the sound. Sherlock knows his violin practically inside and out, but he will (reluctantly) admit that he knows comparatively very little about clarinets. He knows types – the lone BBB-flat octo-contrabass clarinet still in existence, the common B-flat sopranos; which brands are better for hobbyists and for professionals – but nothing about what it means to play one.

Sherlock puts all of the pieces back exactly as they were, closes the lid, and moves the case back to its initial position. John doesn't like finding out that Sherlock's been messing with his stuff.

–

Indeed, John found his flatmate out cold on the couch – on his stomach instead of his back, for a change – when he quietly stole down the stairs early that morning. He observed that the case had been left undisturbed all night. Sherlock was learning, then.

He fixed a cup of black tea and toast with some homemade jam that Mrs. Hudson had generously given to them. Now and then he heard Sherlock shifting on the couch and muttering what sounded suspiciously like deductions in his sleep. Even in slumber the man's brain ran miles per minute...

John carefully replaced the fallen jacket over Sherlock's body before he put on his own coat and left.

Sherlock's eyes open the instant the door closes, and then he springs to work.

–

It was a mess at the surgery; a worried mother brought in her entire family, convinced that they had all including herself contracted the latest super-flu. In reality, they were all merely suffering from spoiled eggs at breakfast.

John liked being a doctor for the surgery. But he did tire of all the children brought in at every sneeze.

A quiet lunch break with Sarah and nice weather for the cab ride to Tesco's made things a little better. It worried him a little that he hadn't received any kind of text from Sherlock the whole day. Not even a very pointed "BORED" had found its way to his inbox. If there was a case, he would have been alerted. Mycroft would have contacted him if Sherlock had gotten himself into trouble, he felt certain.

Paranoia. Of the kind acquired not on the battlefield in Afghanistan.

John entered the living area with the shopping to find Sherlock reclining in his armchair, perusing a heavy book. Idle. Not destroying the flat. Good.

"Took your time," Sherlock commented. John lowered the shopping bags to the floor and took off his coat.

"There's a big game on Sunday; loads of people stocking up on snacks."

Sherlock grunted an acknowledgment; he did not much care for televised sports. John used to, but his life was too unpredictable anymore to plan for a six-hour block in front of the telly. He put the shopping away and came back to the living area. Sherlock hadn't moved, as usual. By now, John just ignored it.

He spotted the clarinet case on the side of the coffee table and glanced hurriedly at Sherlock. He knew the man was keeping tabs on his location even if he was not obviously watching him. "Sorry," he murmured, finally picking it up, "I meant to move this earlier."

"It wasn't in my way," Sherlock dismissed, not looking up once from the book. After a moment of consideration, John nodded to himself. Fair enough. Why else would it still be precisely where he left it? "Try jazz."

"Sorry?"

Sherlock turned a page. "Schools teach such a limited repertoire. You would be good at jazz."

"Jazz."

"It's better than 'Hot Cross Buns,' isn't it?"

John caught up quickly after that. "I thought you didn't approve of the clarinet."

"I never said that. I merely did not expect you to ever buy one." Now Sherlock looked at him. And somehow John understood. Somehow, Sherlock had seen it as a violation of order, for John to do something he hadn't anticipated. Adjusting his grip on the case handle, John nodded again. He took all of two stairs before something occurred to him.

"What did you do?"

"Hmm?" Sherlock looked up from his book again, the picture of innocence.

"What did you do to the clarinet?"

The corner of his mouth twitched upward.

"You wouldn't even be thinking about the clarinet right now unless you'd done something to it."

The quarter-smile became half. "Very good, John." Putting the book aside, Sherlock sat a little straighter in the chair and steepled his fingers in front of his lips. "Care to find out?"

…

Challenge accepted. John returns the case to the coffee table and sits before it on the couch, perfectly aware that Sherlock is closely watching his every move. John assembles the clarinet exactly as he had the previous day. Before attempting to play, he makes careful eye contact with Sherlock: _make fun at this, and I'll kill you._

The note that sweeps out of the bell is low and even. Bemused, John works through a scale; waiting apprehensively for the squeaking that never arrives. Sherlock's grin grows wider with each note John plays, an insufferable light dancing in his eyes.

"What did you _do?_" John demands after he completes an arpeggio without a single complaint.

"Fixed it," his flatmate replies simply.

"That's obvious," John retorts under his breath, still not sure if he's annoyed or pleased with the interference, "How?"

"Sticky tack and a paper clip." Back to the book. John stares at him, tries a couple times to form a next question, but nothing comes to him. He looks at the clarinet in his hands, can't see any evidence of tampering. Not that Sherlock, being Sherlock, would have left any.

"Thank you."

Sherlock says nothing. John replaces the clarinet, closes the case, and takes it upstairs to his room.

Sherlock, momentarily, hears his flatmate fiddling with more scales and arpeggios from his spot in the living area. He smirks to himself. It won't be long, now.

His cell phone chirps from the couch arm. Lestrade had tracked down and arrested the "cult" members responsible for the previous day's murders. "_Thought you'd like to know_," the text ends. It honestly makes no difference to Sherlock, so he doesn't bother to reply in any form. He turns another page.

–

Fifty-eight days later, Sherlock woke up John with his violin a little past four in the morning.

_First time for everything, indeed_, John thought wryly after seeing the time. He listened for a while, trying to determine what mood the consulting detective embodied before he did anything about the disruption. John had learned very quickly that the elegance of the music was directly proportional to how wise it would be to interrupt the one playing it.

Sherlock had himself learned quickly that if he must play at night, then please do it at _pianissimo_ or so help me, God. "Quiet is boring," Sherlock had protested. But he did it, except for now and again when he played horribly discordant nonsense at _fortissimo_ just to piss John off.

Tonight, it sounded like Sherlock had taken a shine to Top 40. _Bad Romance_, of all things. John rolled to his other side, folding his pillow over his ears as he went.

A few minutes later, John realized the music had dramatically changed. It only took him another minute to recognize the song because a Stradivarius, to his mind, was entirely the wrong instrument to play it.

_"Dipper Mouth Blues"_ floated into John's consciousness. He sat up, quietly got out of bed, silently pulled the door open, and carefully stole a little ways down the stairs. Sherlock stood at the window closest to the couch, facing through it to the street outside. Lamplight poured into the room, setting a dull halo around the mop of black curls and the blue silk dressing gown. John would admit to hearing his flatmate playing many things, but he could not once recall the man before him ever playing jazz music. Lady Gaga, he could understand; shops all over blasted her music over their intercom systems. There was no avoiding her.

But jazz?

Although, for how out of place it felt, Sherlock seemed very good at it. Of course he would be; what gave John the idea he would be otherwise? He sat on the step and listened for a few minutes. After finishing _Dipper Mouth Blues_, he played through another jazz number, one John did not immediately recognize.

Then he abruptly switched over to Beethoven, at a markedly softer volume. Back to normal, sort of. John gave it another minute before straightening and coming the rest of the way downstairs.

"Sherlock," he tested. Not missing a note, Sherlock looked at him over his shoulder as he continued to coax music out of the violin strings. "It's twenty after four," he continued, pointing to his watch. All he got was a smirk in response. "I have work in three hours. Less than."

Sherlock only stopped playing because he had conveniently come to a lift in the music that made a nice stopping point. "I see."

"What's going on? You haven't got a case, have you?"

"No."

"Then what's bothering you?"

Instead of saying anything, Sherlock opened his hand holding the violin neck and dragged his bow across one string at a time. John raised an eyebrow, crossing his arms, watching Sherlock carefully twist the silver tuners at the base of the strings. But even after Sherlock seemed satisfied with the Stradivarius' musical profile, he neither spoke nor resumed playing. Rather, the man just stood there, remaining in front of the window, gazing thoughtfully at the instrument still propped under his chin. John finally gave up on receiving any explanation, bidding his flatmate goodnight ("Or good morning, rather") as he turned to go back upstairs.

"Need more instruments," followed him.

"Sorry?"

"Jazz doesn't sound right with just one instrument," Sherlock said shortly, frowning as if he'd just realized he had no way to play multiple instruments at once, and the fact immensely disappointed him.

"I... suppose not," John supplied; he really did not know what to say. Then he noticed how purposefully the other man was staring at him out the corner of his eye, and John shook his head firmly. "Not right now, Sherlock."

"I'll have forgotten later."

John almost laughed. "You don't forget _anything_."

"I might have to." '_It only makes sense to keep things in my hard drive that are **really** useful_.' Maybe something would happen later today that would force his flatmate to delete the unnecessary data that helped him play jazz; that was what Sherlock was concerned about. "I've heard you practicing, _relentlessly_."

For a few tense moments, John looked between his watch, his flatmate, and the orange glow of streetlights outside their windows. Once more at his watch, and he sighed. "All right; we'll give it a go, if we must."

He wondered if he had imagined Sherlock's little bounce of glee as he turned to fetch his clarinet.

–

Sherlock remembers it in a swirl of sounds lacing through the air. High notes, white and jumping; low notes, throbbing in shots of color. Sweeping up and down, vibrating out of clarinet bell and violin strings, their newborn music begins fumbling, uncoordinated; grows awkward, self-conscious; matures into its skin and fills the flat with its playful melody. Once they find their voices in the duet, their instruments _sing_. The beauty of an instrument cannot be appreciated until it falls into the hands of someone who knows how to handle it. John cannot make the Stradivarius laugh out the accompaniment any more than Sherlock, at least with his present knowledge, can make the clarinet croon its understated melody.

The song and sound flourish; the _al fine_ is ignored three times because it feels natural and not from any voiced sentiment. Repeat, and repeat again, because the music is _a person_ and its pulse is the rhythm that John taps his foot to meet, that Sherlock becomes aware he is swaying to. It puzzles him, but he doesn't stop to investigate because for the moment it's _good_. A smile tugs at him and for a moment he considers letting it win. Because he has never seen John this relaxed, and this strikes him as _good, _too.

They end in a flurry of notes charged with citrus energy and when they come back down, John has run out of breath and Sherlock can no longer remember where the music made him go. The hand gripping the bow trembles a little, and Sherlock cautiously lowers his arm; the last vestiges of sound drift across the room. The horizon beyond the Baker Street skyline is lighter, and John looks at his watch with a small cringe of regret.

"Should I have let you go to bed?" Sherlock whispers at last. He doesn't want to interrupt this new feeling – this _aliveness_ that he's never touched before. He hasn't figured out how to ask John if he can feel it, too. The doctor checks his watch again, just seconds behind the first glance; doesn't sigh, doesn't shake his head. Curious...

"Probably," John replies at his normal volume, and the feeling retreats to the corners of the room.

Tilting his head a little, Sherlock waits. "But?"

Caught. John smiles, still looking at the clarinet in his hands. "What we did was good." Relieved, the _alive_ feeling rushes back and crackles around them. "That was fun." Lower lids drawn up, the smile reaching the crow's feet around his eyes that glow a warm, soft blue. He means it.

The bow hangs from Sherlock's carefully limp hand. He restlessly twirls the tip in a small circle, watching rosin dust flick off onto the floor. Maybe he thought he could disturb the air, watch the electricity like water ripples. Because he can feel it tingle on his skin, and it's not unpleasant, and he's certain he's felt this way before, but he can't remember what to call it. "Fun," he whispers, like it's significant, and maybe it's the clue he needs to put it all together.

"Hmm?" John utters, looking up with an inquisitive quirk of an eyebrow. But Sherlock ignores him, attention concentrated on the end of his violin bow, continuing its ministrations on the _something_ in the air. Real electricity is blueish-white; Sherlock is positive this kind is gold. "Well, while you figure it out, I'm going back to bed." At the landing, John pauses. "Maybe we can do that again sometime?"

Sherlock doesn't answer. But the idea sounds... a bit good. He smiles. Very much a bit good.

–

A few days later, John announces he's bringing the clarinet to work with him.

"What for?" Sherlock asks, currently engrossed in an article on his laptop screen.

"Sarah mentioned wanting me to play something for her, yesterday." A halt wherein it occurs to him. "You didn't say anything to her, did you?"

"And why would I do that?" He sets to typing an inquiring email to a contact in the university financial office.

"Sherlock..."

Sherlock looks up, meets the long-suffering smile on his flatmate's face, and blinks. "Problem?"

John shakes his head disapprovingly. "Bit not good, Sherlock." Then he disappears off to work. Taking the clarinet with him.

A few seconds later, the door closes.

Sherlock smirks wickedly.

_Liar!_

* * *

><p><strong>Sherlock's brain runs too fast for him to be written in past-tense, obviously. (If there was a way for me to write him in future-tense without going crazy, I would've tried that. I'm sure I'll try it anyway, someday.)<strong>

**You didn't imagine that nod to "Doctor Who."**

**The sticky tack and paper clip is, funnily enough, a nod to an episode of "Arthur" (yes, that kids' cartoon), where Binky's clarinet was on the fritz, and his friends tried to fix it with bubble gum and a paper clip. Actually, the sticky-tack-paperclip route seems a bit more Who-ish in retrospect, but that doesn't mean Sherlock wouldn't have found a way for it to work, yes? Having him just go to a repair shop seemed so _dull_.  
>Elephant-memory'd folks will remember that Muffy tried to show off with her new Stradivarius in that same episode.<br>So now I picture Sherlock rigging his case with an anti-theft to scream "STEP AWAY FROM THE STRADIVARIUS" when a person gets within five feet of it. XD**

**In jazz circles, a clarinet might be referred to as a licorice stick; I read that in my preliminary research and thought it would make an amusing temp title. It all went downhill from there. XD**

**Hmm, yes, you can tell I don't know a thing about clarinets! |D**

**All that nonsense out of the way, how'd I do? Was my characterization okay for a first pass? I understand them internally, but I'm not sure I've worked out how I want to articulate them... Learning process, I suppose.**

**Thank you so much for reading; I truly appreciate it! :D**


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